Partial military/OHPs

[jsraaf]

For those of you doing partial OHP's (by this I am meaning lowering BB to around the top of head, to focus mainly on side delts), what are you combining this with (if anything) to work your front delts? Full ROM militaries, arnolds, front raises??

Is there a consensus that unless or until you are quite big & developed, that a single OHP movement would suffice - perhaps the best one being a BB military press (standing or seated) with a full ROM?

 

[Kate]

Hi, John!

I don't know about consensus, but unless you have a serious imbalance to adress, I'd stick with a standing MP with a full range of motion. These work great for negatives too... just turn them into push presses.

Kate

 

[jsraaf]

Hi Kate - thanks, that's what I suspected.

Do you prefer standing vs. seated, for the reason of negatives? Or, do you have another reason - such as being able to use higher load?

 

[Kate]

Hi, John!

Standing burns more calories and challenges the core. These are things I try to incorporate into most of my lifts.

I was taught to do a seated shoulder press when I first started training for hypertrophy. I locked my scaps on the back of the bench and pressed away with a fair amount of weight.

I'm a little wiser in the ways of stabilizing muscles and rotator cuffs and such. It no longer makes sense to me to ask a muscle to move a weight it cannot stabilize on its own.

So for those reasons plus how well the it "turns into" a push press for my negatives, the military press is my choice for shoulders. Occasionally RC complaints have made me drop the MPs in favor of lateral raises as I hit the heavy workouts.

FYI, traditionally a military press is done standing. It was originally done with feet together with a military like stance, hence the name.